Valparai has situated in western ghats , one among the Big cat conflict zone in Southindia.

Human & Tiger conflict :

India has more than 500 wildlife sanctuaries comprising 1.21% of country’s total surface area. These wildlife sanctuaries includes 120 National parks and 48 Tiger reserves.India is home to an estimated 2300 of the 4000 – odd last surviving wild tigers on this planet. More than thousands of villages are situated around the sanctuary areas.The livelihood of the people residing in these villages is solely dependent on agriculture, livestock grazing, honey collecting and fishing.

Increasing human activities inside the forest, low prey base and fast shrinking forest space has led to a situation where Tigers very often have to share space with human who are dependent on the forest for their livelihood and eventually leading to Human-Tiger conflict in many sanctuaries across the country.

Tigers pose serious threat to the humans by the man eating behaviour & preying on their livestock which many local communities depend on for their livelihood.. This is due to the fact that the densities of wild prey are lower because of hunting and competition with livestock.

In reciprocating to the behaviour of the tiger, the local people poison their livestock to kill the tiger. It’s also created a major human – tiger co-existence crisis in many sanctuaries across the country.

In order to mitigate the human- tiger conflict government has also strategized the approach of human relocation which again has many practical hurdles.